Burning the Day

This Texas-bred band makes losing a lover sound downright appealing with this set of mostly love-gone-wrong songs. “Interstate” is a superb summer road anthem, but that golden road ends with “Damn the Rain,” which mingles love, pain, pride and acceptance with the stark lyric I love her too much to curse her name / So damn the rain. “Steal You Away” is a good guy’s gutsy fantasy of taking a girl from a guy who doesn’t deserve her, a ballad with plenty of hellbent string bending. The energy level picks back up with “Starting Over for the Last Time.” Here, Randy’s rugged voice splinters slightly in all the right places, similar to Gary Allan’s. During the process of making the album, the band gave these songs room to gel through hours of rehearsal and live performances, and the effort shows, with frank and poetic lyrics gliding easily over a rock-tinged country foundation.